The mission seems simple, use the might of our Inner Sphere mechs to finally put a permanent stop to the advance of the Clans. With the eventual restoration of the Star League, our glorious leader, Archon-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion, will lead us to victory against the last of the clans, Clan Smoke Jaguar. For our part, we will perform a quick strike against Jaguar facilities on planet Traquil, where no doubt we will have to face the most vicious, genetically modified warriors the clan can throw at us. Here comes the mission briefing over the com. Oh, this is bad news. The second dropship in the assault, the Black Hammer, has been... Wait a second. I know that voice from somewhere. It sounds like -

Among PC gamers, the MechWarrior series has always stood out in the sparsely populated "giant robot" sub-genre of video games, not so much for being a more visual representation of the tabletop strategy/role-playing game, Battletech , but for being a pretty hardcore simulation. But, no longer. A free-to-play online version has been available since late 2013, but has since lost it's sim and story-line focus in favor of team-based action. With a tantalizing tease of a new "real" MechWarrior game in the near future, what better time to take a gander at the road that led us here.

The MechAssault games released on the original Xbox represent one of the last pushes of the BattleTech franchise towards mainstream popularity. With all past successful games released on PC, it seems obvious that publisher Microsoft and developer Day 1 Studios (with some input by FASA Interactive) wanted a fresh reboot in the form of a new francise, one that would be playable only one Microsoft's new Xbox console system. But would this even be possible in a market that seemingly didn't give a rip about Western-style robot sims?

So I'm an odd ball. So I am usually the last to post on a blog/forum. So I only post about weird games on weird platforms. So I have a strange relationship with commas and parenthesis. So what? Hey, at least you don't have to car pool with me to work, right? So have a heart, eat a blueberry, and don't forget to drop the empties in the box on the way out. I get deposit on those.